These are the five Mauritian dishes you need to try right now

By Freya Herring

Feb 27th, 2018

Mauritian chicken and prawn curry

Eat the tropics from the comfort of your kitchen table.

Everyone knows their favourite Thai dish, or Italian or Chinese. But what about some of the more unusual cuisines? We covered off Maldivian recently, and now we want to take you to tropical Mauritius. The food here is a melting pot of its inhabitants and its history – ‘discovered’ by the Portuguese, before falling to Dutch, French and then British rule, it’s now an independent country where an international collection of people live together relatively harmoniously.

Mauritius is known largely for its many fabulous resorts, and we visited recently to see what all the fuss was about. We stayed at brand new Lux Grand Gaube, in the island’s north and also at Lux Le Morne, on the island’s southwest coast, where we had the opportunity to undertake a Mauritian cooking course with resident Mauritian executive sous-chefs Dany Lochoo and Vishal Boguban, and pastry chef Krishna Munusami. With mountains of beautiful produce piled up in our outdoor kitchen, we watched the waves crash in the Indian Ocean as we prepared our feast with the chefs.

You can tell a lot about a country from its food, and in Mauritius that means that on one day you could be eating fish and coconut, and then Indian curry or Chinese noodles, followed by excellent cheese and the best baguettes outside of France. If ever the term ‘melting pot’ was appropriate, it would be on this tropical island. Here are five dishes you can make at home – each of them quick and easy – and why they need to become part of your weekly repertoire.

Check out the five recipes below for a full dinner menu of Mauritian dishes you need to try right now. Scroll down for all the links and mouthwatering pictures...

Palm heart salad Crunchy, fresh, clean and singing with flavour, palm heart salad is a traditional Mauritian recipe that dates back hundreds of years – long before ‘raw’ became a hashtag. The heart of the palm tree, which is native to Mauritius, is sliced finely and tossed with minimal seasonings, so that its crunchy texture lies at the fore of its appeal. Our recipe is the purest sort, but you can also add sliced chillies, onions, capsicums and tomatoes, as well as a whole host of herbs to jazz it up – in Mauritius you also see it served with fresh prawns, so that it becomes a meal in itself.

FaratasWe’re struggling to understand just why these flatbreads are quite so delicious, given they only contain three core ingredients: flour, butter and salt. They are stretchy and buttery like Malaysian-style rotis, but not dry in any way. Flour is simply kneaded with butter, and the dough then rolled out and fried flat in a pan, where it is flipped regularly to maintain even cooking. In Mauritius faratas are a standard accompaniment to any curry, but we reckon they would be delicious as a replacement for tortillas too.

Chicken and prawn curry It’s incredible how few spices are actually in this very traditional Mauritian curry, given how much of a flavour bomb it is: just turmeric, coriander and chilli. Chicken and prawn curry is what we can only suppose is the spag bol of Mauritius; because the chefs tell us that this is the comforting, everyday dish your mum would make for you growing up. It’s an example of an Indo-Mauritian dish, with a hefty dose of garlic and ginger thrown into the sauce too. Serve with spicy pickles and the essential farata.

Beef Rougaille Rougaille is a tomato-based sauce that is paired with everything from beef to prawns in Mauritius. With its thyme and garlic infused tomato sauce, it’s a signal to the country’s French colonial past. But then curry leaves come into play, along with fresh coriander and ginger. In this way, rougaille is a summation of Mauritius itself – a mixture of native, French, Indian and Chinese people, and the food they brought with them many moons ago.

Mauritian Napolitaine The traditional Napolitaine is like a Mauritian Melting Moment, but even more melty, if you can believe it. The biscuit is like a very, very buttery shortbread, with no sugar added whatsoever so it’s not at all sweet. Two of them sandwich sweet strawberry jam and are then encased in the most fluoro-pink icing you can imagine. It’s like a sweet and savoury cookie, if you will, and it’s pretty darn glorious with a cuppa in the afternoon.